How can organizations escalate unresolved phishing abuse reports involving financial impersonation?

[Proteccion-Marca]

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Hello GitHub Community,

We are seeking guidance regarding GitHub's abuse reporting process.

We represent Banco del Pacífico S.A., a financial institution in Ecuador. Over the past several months, we have submitted multiple abuse reports to GitHub Trust & Safety concerning repositories that appear to be part of phishing campaigns impersonating our institution.

These repositories use our registered trademarks ("Banco del Pacífico" and "Pacificard"), our logos, and references to our financial products without authorization. Several of them also contain links, files, or other elements that appear intended to facilitate phishing activities targeting our customers.

We have reported these repositories through the official channels and have received several ticket references acknowledging receipt of our reports. However, many of the reported repositories remain publicly accessible, and we have not received updates regarding their status.

We understand that the GitHub Community cannot review abuse reports directly. Therefore, our questions are:

Is there a formal escalation process when multiple phishing-related reports remain unresolved?
How can organizations obtain updates regarding numerous open Trust & Safety tickets?
Is there a recommended approach for reporting coordinated impersonation campaigns affecting financial institutions?

Any guidance from community members or GitHub staff would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time and assistance.

[Ph4ntomic]

While Trust & Safety is the standard route, relying on the general 'Abuse' queue for active financial phishing is unfortunately a strategic dead end. The T&S queues are notoriously backlogged. If you want immediate action, you need to change your vector.

Here is the escalation and mitigation strategy used by AppSec teams to bypass the general queue:

1. Pivot from 'Abuse' to 'Legal' (DMCA & Trademark)
   Abuse reports are handled by moderators. Trademark and Copyright (DMCA) reports are handled by GitHub's Legal team. Because GitHub relies on 'Safe Harbor' protections under the DMCA to avoid liability, their legal team is legally mandated to act on formal takedown notices within a strict timeframe (often 24-48 hours).
   Stop using the 'Report Abuse' button. Instead, submit formal Trademark Takedown Notices directly via GitHub’s DMCA/Trademark process. Provide your trademark registration numbers. The response time will drop from weeks to hours.

2. The Browser-Level Killswitch (Burn the Infrastructure)
   While you wait for GitHub to delete the repository, you can neutralize the threat instantly. If the attackers are hosting the phishing pages via GitHub Pages (.github.io), report the URLs directly to Google Safe Browsing and Microsoft Defender SmartScreen.
   These entities react within minutes to active phishing. Once flagged, any user clicking the link will get a massive red warning screen in Chrome, Edge, Safari, or Firefox. The repo might still exist on GitHub, but its effectiveness as a phishing tool is immediately reduced to zero.

3. API-Driven OSINT Monitoring
   Coordinated campaigns shouldn't be fought manually. If you aren't already, use the GitHub REST API to actively monitor for new repositories containing your strings (Banco del Pacífico, Pacificard). You can script a lightweight OSINT tool to scrape newly created public repositories and automatically generate the DMCA notice templates for your legal team the moment a rogue repo goes public.

The general community cannot escalate your tickets, but by shifting your approach from 'Trust & Safety' to 'Legal Liability' and burning their domains at the browser level, you take away the attackers' leverage entirely.

[annadheeraj2008-max]

hile you wait for GitHub to delete the repository, you can neutralize the threat instantly. If the attackers are hosting the phishing pages via GitHub Pages (.github.io), report the URLs directly to Google Safe Browsing and Microsoft Defender SmartScreen.
These entities react within minutes to active phishing. Once flagged, any user clicking the link will get a massive red warning screen in Chrome, Edge, Safari, or Firefox

API-Driven OSINT Monitoring
Coordinated campaigns shouldn't be fought manually. If you aren't already, use the GitHub REST API to actively monitor for new repositories containing your strings (Banco del Pacífico, Pacificard). You can script a lightweight OSINT tool to scrape newly created public repositories and automatically generate the DMCA notice templates for your legal team the moment a rogue repo goes public.

[Gecko51]

A few additional escalation paths that may help beyond what has already been suggested here.

For financial institutions dealing with coordinated phishing campaigns, the standard abuse queue is not the right tool. Here is what tends to move faster:

Trademark takedown instead of abuse report. GitHub's legal team is bound by DMCA safe harbor obligations and responds to formal trademark/copyright notices on a much tighter timeline than general abuse tickets. Stop using the "Report Abuse" button for trademark-infringing repos and instead submit a formal Trademark Infringement notice via GitHub's dedicated form at github.com/contact/dmca. Include your trademark registration numbers for "Banco del Pacifico" and "Pacificard". Legal notices typically get a response within 24 to 48 hours versus weeks for the general queue.

Escalate through CERT Ecuador. National computer emergency response teams have established bilateral channels with major platforms like GitHub for expedited takedowns of phishing infrastructure targeting domestic financial institutions. If you have not already engaged CERT Ecuador (cert.ec), that is worth doing in parallel. They can sometimes move faster than direct outreach.

Neutralize active phishing pages at the browser level while waiting for takedowns. If any of the repositories are serving phishing content via GitHub Pages, report those specific URLs directly to Google Safe Browsing (safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish) and the Anti-Phishing Working Group (reportphishing@apwg.org). Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge all pull from these feeds. Active phishing URLs can get browser-level warnings applied within hours, which neutralizes the threat for your customers even before the repository is taken down.

Automate monitoring for new repos. The GitHub REST API (api.github.com/search/repositories) lets you query for newly created public repos containing your brand strings. A simple scheduled script can alert your team the moment a new impersonation repo appears and auto-generate a draft takedown notice, cutting your response time from days to hours.